LED-on-microwire startup raises $13 million

Aledia SA (Grenoble, France), a startup developer of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) on microwires of gallium-nitride-on-silicon has made its first LEDs on 200-mm diameter wafers and raised $13 million in a first round of venture capital finance.

The 3-D GaN-on-Silicon microwire technology was developed over a six-year period at the LETI research institute in Grenoble and the claim is that Aledia's LEDs will have a production cost of one quarter that of conventional planar LEDs.

Aledia's technology uses millions of sub-micron diameter light-emitting GaN pillars standing up from the silicon surface to obtain an improved area efficiency of light generation. This produces three times more light per square millimeter of planar area, the company claims.

In addition little material is used to form the microwires, approximately two-thirds of the material cost in planar LEDs and this added to 200-mm wafer processing should produce the 25 percent cost base, the company said. A secondary advantage claimed for the technology is that multiple colors can be created on single wafer or even on single die, which should produce advantages for tuning the output for general lighting applications.

A further claimed advantage is that the so-called WireLED devices is that devices suitable for general lighting could be fabricated without the use of phosphors. This is because WireLEDs can be tailored to produce green and red as well as the industry-standard blue GaN LEDs.

The company has been spun out of LETI by the technical developers with
Georgio Anania as co-founder, CEO and chairman. Anania was previously
CEO of Bookham Ltd., a supplier of optical components which Anania
helped take public. Anania's co-founders are Xavier Hugon, COO, and
Philippe Gilet, CTO.

Aledia raised 10 million euro (about $13
million) in a Series A that closed in 2012 with Braemar Energy Ventures,
Sofinnova Partners, Demeter Partners and CEA Investissement
participating.

"Since our financing last year, we have scaled up
our microwire manufacturing process and transferred it to 8-inch silicon
wafers. We can now push forward to optimize the performance of these
products and bring them to market," said Anania, in a statement.

As
part of the company's spin-out from LETI it has received exclusive
worldwide rights to all present and future CEA patents on microwire
technology as applied to the area of lighting. Several additional
patents have already been filed directly by Aledia.

Click on image to enlarge.

Fields of microwire pillars can be tuned for different color emission. Each die can contain millions of sub-micron LEDs. Source: Aledia SA.